PORT ANGELES – Another part of the new Regional Transfer Station opened Wednesday when the ribbon was cut on the moderate risk waste facility at the end of West 18th Street.
The Regional Transfer Station opened for ordinary garbage on Jan. 2.
The moderate risk waste facility accepts leftover gasoline and propane, solvents, pesticides, poisons, household cleaners, lawn and garden supplies, corrosives, oxidizers, and oil-based paints.
It also accepts leftover mercury.
But it does not accept latex paints, business waste, fluorescent tubes, electronic waste or pharmaceutical waste.
The free drop-off operation will be open from 11 a.m. until 4 p.m. on Wednesdays and Saturdays.
It already had three customers during its first three hours prior to the 2 p.m. ceremony, which featured former City Councilwoman Lauren Erickson driving a car through a ribbon into the covered collection area.
The modest metal building located past the scales at the transfer station features a covered drive-up area.
An employee in protective clothing will unload the hazardous materials from the person’s car onto a cart that then is brought inside the building.
The materials will be sorted into 55-gallon barrels according to one of seven hazard categories: acids, bases, toxics, flammables, oxidizers, aerosols and batteries.
Once enough materials are compiled – probably quarterly – the barrels will be loaded onto a truck for a trip to Kent, where Philip Services Co. operates an Environmental Protection Agency-permitted hazardous waste disposal site.
The waste site operator – which once ran the annual one-day hazardous household waste collection events – is a subcontractor of Waste Connections of Washington, which operates the city-owned Regional Transfer Station.
City Solid Waste Coordinator Tom McCabe said the operation could expand to collect other items later, but it will start off with the basics for now.
Funded by state Department of Ecology grants, it can accept only residential hazardous wastes, McCabe said.
But eventually the operation may be able to accept commercial hazardous wastes for a fee, he said.
Located outside the building are a 600-gallon container for used motor oil and a 350-gallon container for used anti-freeze.
